We started the mission this year with a bang: an “Introduction to Osteopathy” course that attracted 60 attendees, physiotherapists and physiotherapy students.
Haider Ali, DO, assisting teaching
The high attendance surprised us. For the last ten years, several pioneers embraced our vision of a healthier healthcare system, where osteopathy would be available in all neighborhoods and rural areas as a first line of care, and as complementary care in hospitals or within physician practices. But we had received little interest from healthcare professionals. It meant a commitment of too much time and money for training in a profession that meant nothing to them.
But now, after ten years of effort, and the passage of time, things have changed and now osteopathy is known and talked about, thanks in part to the beautiful work by the two Pakistani osteopaths we trained, Haider Ali, DO, and Usmara Zafar, DO. They have built a solid reputation in Lahore. It’s also because osteopathy is one of the fastest growing medical professions in Australia and other Western countries.
The charismatic professor in our group, Faisal Naqvi, DO, from Montreal, Canada, who was part of the first mission, and has come with us 6 times in 11 years, transformed the opportunity into a success: the attendees were very impressed by the effectiveness of the techniques they were taught. Many comments on the feedback questionnaires asked for osteopathy to be in every clinic, hospital or neighborhood. They loved that it had such immediate results in the mobility of the tissues, using no force, just a dialogue with the living tissues. Some students were so impressed they asked for us to meet with the executives of their universities to talk about their hosting the osteopathic school we want to bring to Pakistan. We are very grateful to these visionaries for the opportunities offered and are working towards opening a part-time program of osteopathy in early 2018, open to healthcare professionals. When there are enough local osteopaths, we’ll be able to start a full-time Masters in Osteopathy program with our partner university. Inshallah!
The proud class after 2 days of learning to listen to the tissues, feeling balance points and still points and immediate releases.
Usmara Zafar, DO
We ended the mission with another bang: the inauguration of the Osteopathy Center at Namal Education Foundation (NEF), in New Garden Town, Lahore. Aleema Khan, board member at OWB and NEF, is used to thinking big and achieving great results. She had the vision of a dedicated space for the Osteopathy Project in Pakistan, that would serve as a hub for OWB’s activities: a part-time clinic for our two local osteopaths Haider and Usmara, a place where foreign osteopaths and volunteers can treat private patients and also, once there are local students, a place where clinical demonstrations can take place.
The treatment room at the new Osteopathy Center.
Usmara Zafar taking her turn addressing osteopathy supporters during the inauguration of the Osteopathy Center.
In the name of Namal Education Foundation, Aleema Khan distributed awards to each volunteer for their work bringing osteopathy to Pakistan, here with Mr. Sikander Mustafa, NEF, and Mian Masood, VC of South Asia University.
Aleema and her team at NEF designed beautiful panels telling the stories of the 11 missions since 2007. It made Faisal Naqvi and I quite nostalgic, and also very grateful for all that was accomplished during those years. We were very pleased to welcome some early supporters of osteopathy in Pakistan: Dr. Pervaiz Iqbal, orthopedic surgeon at Sheik Zayed Hospital, who first opened the doors of a hospital to the missions. Shahima Rehman, chairperson of Fatima Memorial Hospital, who allowed a study to be conducted at their community center, showing the significant improvement in general health of 50 patients treated with osteopathy for neck or back pain. We were pleased to welcome the Vice-Chancellor of University of South Asia, Mian Imran Masood, and his group of executives and professors, who were first introduced to osteopathy during this year’s course and who are interested in helping in our mission. Many patients came showing their support for a medicine they have come to depend on for their health and well-being, as well as a solid group of “future osteopathic students” (as the tags distributed to them at the entrance said) who came to learn more about this osteopathy they were becoming passionate about.
Faisal Naqvi, DO, read the address by Philippe Druelle, DO, founder and director of the CEO.
After a reading of the Koran, each of the osteopaths present took a turn at the lectern, talking about the history of the missions and sharing their vision of a healthier healthcare system in Pakistan, where osteopathy is integrated at an early stage of development, allowing better allocation of tight financial resources to improve the population’s health. Philippe Druelle, DO, founder and director of the College d’Etudes Osteopathiques (CEO, college of osteopathic studies), in Montreal, sent a heartfelt letter for the occasion that thanked all our friends who supported our efforts so far, and promising his and the CEO’s teachers’ full support for the creation of the future school. This first osteopathic school of Asia will provide the highest quality of training, fitting international standards, by initially sending professors from Montreal.
Our time in between those two great successes was very eventful. We are used to going to work in Nagar and Gilgit, in the Northern mountainous areas, to demonstrate how osteopathy can be a valuable help in rural areas.
As we started our journey, we learned that our guide Ibrahim, because of whom we were working in Nagar, had suddenly died the day before. We used to call Ibrahim an honorary osteopath, as he was such a dedicated advocate of our medicine. He was working selflessly to bring development to his remote valley and had helped organize our work, in the schools (he was a teacher) with his cousin Imdad Hussain, a school principal, and in different neighborhoods. He was instrumental in helping us convince mothers to stop flattening the head of babies for beauty, as he had witnessed and understood the harm caused by that compression of the cranial base, irritating precious nerves and weakening the health of the children. He’ll be greatly missed by us and all in Nagar valley.
We had to leave our favorite clinic in the mountains of Nagar….
Despite their grief, our friends Imdad Hussain and Khairullah Nagri organized our first day of work at our favorite clinic: the grounds of the local palace. It is very special for osteopaths to work outdoors under the trees, surrounded by powerful and still mountains. Unfortunately, that first day became our last: the police came and told us to leave because we didn’t have the proper authorizations. I won’t go any further into that story. Suffice to say it was heart-breaking for all of us. This order applied for the whole province, which meant that when we met with Dr. Wajahat, a very generous and dedicated pediatrician in Gilgit, also an early supporter of our efforts since 2007, we were not able to work with him in his two hospitals as planned. In the privacy of his house, we did take the opportunity to treat the baby that was brought to him because of yet another febrile fit, after five days of medication. Every mission, Dr. Wajahat has enjoyed being able to offer further care for those among his patients not responding to his treatments. Releasing the flow of circulation allows the immune system, or the antibiotics if necessary, to flood the infected area in order for the healing to be complete.
All of us at Osteopathy Without Borders and our friends in Nagar and Gilgit feel we have invested a lot during those 11 years of missions, where now osteopathy is appreciated and wanted. We trust osteopathy will be back, we hope next with Pakistani osteopathic students accompanying western volunteers.
…. and found a hospitable hospital in the cool hills of Nathia Gali.
In the meantime, we had to come up with alternate plans to offer our services to patients who could benefit. We ended up working 3 days in Islamabad, a city we had transited through but never had time to work at before. We met many influential and supportive people who recognized the value of our vision and promised to help.
Two years ago, when I was not granted a visa, the team worked in Nathia Gali, a small resort town in the cool mountains, 2.5 hours drive from Islamabad. The schools where the team had worked were not in session, so we connected with the head of the local government outpatient hospital, Dr. Wahid Zaman Khan. He shared a lot of horror stories with us about the state of the hospital he found when he was posted there 12 years ago. The filth and decrepitude of the place couldn’t have it deserve to keep its name of a hospital. With huge effort and vision, Dr. Wahid has transformed the hospital into a very pleasant, welcoming and safe place for 100 to 200 patients coming through every day.
The cool hills of Nathia Gali, where Pakistanis find refuge from the Summer heat.
The 3 of us volunteers set up our osteopathic clinic in a ward and Dr. Wahid wrote his first prescriptions for osteopathic treatments, in a collaboration that we hope to see repeated in every clinic and hospital in the future. As always, we asked to treat children as a priority as they respond best to the one treatment we are able to give. We treated a number of children with a wide range of issues: leg and back pains, blocked nostrils, headaches, poor appetite for the bigger children, poor head control for a 7 month old. Marie-Claude Laroche, DO, a volunteer from Montreal, treated a 6-year old who was complaining of pain after a fall. Nothing was broken so there was not much the doctor could do. He responded very well to osteopathy and the severe asymmetry of his thorax and shoulders were corrected, insuring he would heal without sequelae.
Dr. Wahid Zaman Khan.
We also treated a few adults and one in particular was blessed by our visit that day. A 40 year old man was complaining of severe leg cramps and pain, bladder issues, headaches, abdominal and back pain, chest tightness, recent development of diabetes, a history of hepatitis. He reported having spent a lot of money already for treatments that had not helped at all. His face showed severe pain through the first half of the treatment. He relaxed, and his back felt better when he left after the double treatment I gave him, but he was still very uncomfortable. I found the thoraco-lumbar junction in his back so rigid and misaligned, it felt it had been broken. The nerves emerging from this section of the spine control the kidneys, that felt empty, as if there wasn’t enough perfusion to them. His chest was very tight, as were his cranium and sacrum, interfering with his body’s ability to heal naturally. I spent so much time with him because clearly medication was not going to support his healing when the cause of his discomfort was so predominantly mechanical. During a phone call the following day, Dr. Wahid reported that the patient had come to the hospital to thank him as he was feeling so much better. He was praying for all of us. How much misery and money could have been saved if this man had had access to osteopathy earlier?! This is why we are committed to our mission of creating so many osteopaths that they are in every clinic and hospital, in every neighborhood, providing greater health for less cost to the general population.
During our time in Lahore we split the team in two. I went with Haider and Usmara to meet with executives at several universities who are interested in partnering with our school, the College of Osteopathic Studies in Montreal, (CEO, College d’Etudes Osteopathiques) to start a part-time program open to healthcare professionals, starting early 2018. Faisal and Marie-Claude connected with the students of the workshops at their different hospitals and did demonstrations with real patients. One demonstration at Gulam Devi Hospital was particularly extraordinary. The patient was a 70-year old man complaining of leg pain, which interfered with squatting (indispensable in their environment) and restrictions at the shoulders and arms. The 15 physiotherapists and physiotherapy students watching were able to witness a full resolution of this man’s symptoms. It was so immediate and impressive that they broke into an applause while the patient cried and blessed Faisal and all.
These highlighted success stories don’t happen with every patient of course, but most patients leave an osteopathic session with increased ability to create health autonomously, which allows them to come closer to fulfill their potential. Osteopathy has grown in the West as practitioners and patients alike appreciate its gentleness and efficiency. Integrative medicine is becoming commonplace in most major medical centers, as science validates the efficacy of complementary medicines. It is our hope that our efforts to bring osteopathic training at this early stage of development in Pakistan will allow the evolution of a healthier healthcare system, where functional issues can be helped or resolved with osteopathy, lightening the burden of physicians who will focus their skills and technology on the more serious or urgent patients.
We have started a list of interested healthcare professionals ready to commit to the 5-year part-time program. If we get 30 of them, we can start the program in early 2018, Inshallah!. Professors will travel from Montreal, Canada, to ensure the highest level of training, while Haider and Usmara will serve as assistant-professors. The funds collected through Osteopathy Without Borders will serve to provide scholarships to students unable to cover the high cost of Western teaching. Thank you for your help and support.
Sylvie Erb
Director
Osteopathy Without Borders